It’s done! Ready, driveable and beautiful. I am so happy. Sure, there are things left to do but they can wait until the winter. Now it’s ridin’ time!

Do you live in Stockholm? Do you have a kick-ass bike you want to have featured in a fashion story? Is your bike a chopper/bobber? Does it resemble any of the following bikes whose pictures I have stolen around the Interwebs?

Then please contact me. jens @ thecartorialist . com (remove the spaces)

The shoot is Saturday June 5.

The pictures are “borrowed” from SouthSiders Motorcycle Culture and Wrenchmonkees.

James Hammarhead is my new favourite person, in the world. I just wish he worked a little closer to home. Or, perhaps it’s just me being in the wrong part of the world?

This scrambler called Jack Pine is spot on. It’s the bee’s knees, the dog’s bollocks, the cat’s knickers…
I have one just like this, except mine’s a 120cc single cylinder two-stroke Suzuki from 1970. Man I want me a Jack Pine! At $16,500 it’s actually pretty reasonable. Especially considering that Mr. Hammarhead is only building 8 until 2012. Time to start savin’.

As for the most part, I found it via the excellent Bike Exif.

I have decided to get rid of this beaut. I can’t handle two at a time, no matter how much I wish I could. It’s better to have one in perfect shape than two half arsed. Focus BMW R75/6 now. I am so close to getting it just how I want it. I have given free reign to an artist friend of mine to do what he wants with the tank. It is going to be awesome – I hope!

Wanna buy it? Let me know? €1300 and it’s yours.

The effin’ seatpan has been bugging me for weeks but I am finally done. Good thing I am learning. Now I know exactly what not to do next time. You’re up SR400!

It’s off to the seat-maker to get that beautiful custom Bratstyle look. Contrasting piping? I think so.

Too much?

The world’s finest, most glamorous, most colourful, most informative, global-reaching go fast, turn left magazine. All right, the world’s only go fast, turn left magazine. The place where every weekend is a dirty weekend.

Sideburn

So, I finally got that elusive piece of aluminium that I needed for the seat pan.
After some shaping, I realised that it wouldn’t be enough with just having it looking nice from on top, but that I actually would have to bend it to fit the frame. This is where the problems began.

Also, the wiring is bugging the hell out of me. How am I going to be able to sort that mess out and get the bike working properly again? It’s a nightmare.

Seat pan nice and done. It took an immense amount of time compared to what I thought it was going to take. I think that if I had known the amount of time and effort such a build takes, then I would never have started.

Turns out that I am not completely hopeless. Now I am just going to come up with a nifty way of attaching it. I’ve got an idea…

See the bike in the background in the second picture? I just bought it and am planning to turn it into this:

I have added to the blogroll so if you feel you have an hour, or ten, to kill, feel free to browse through my latest favourites.

Le Container

A Time to Get

Loudpop Voyager

Turns out that the welding really needed to get done by a pro. It cost me about €100 but it was well worth the money.
Now it’s time to start building the seat.

This bike is old news now but it’s a text I wrote for James Spotting a while back. Good for those of you that don’t plow through 15 motorcycle blogs daily like I do.

The noughts is the decade that made custom accessible to the mainstream through TV shows on various cable networks. Looking back at the most significant custom builders of the 21st century so far, Danish Wrenchmonkees sets the tone and the pace of an industry that normally thrive on catering to the wannabe outlaw. However, Wrenchmonkees’ custom motorcycles are to hipsters what ‘roid-rage is to OC Choppers, showing that you can be skinny and listen to electronica and still be into the custom scene.

Wrenchmonkees monochromatic, likeable and simplistic take on the idea of freedom on two wheels is a refreshing sight from the country that gave us Arne Jacobsen and Scandinavian minimalism. The devise of less is more has rarely been more appropriate when studying Wrenchmonkees’ designs; however they don’t just settle for stripping it off but actually add substance to otherwise bland bikes. With nifty ideas like hiding the electric wiring in copper tubing and solid wheels this iteration of Monkee love has been exhibited at various prestigious museums and design studios throughout Europe during 2009.

Called Gorilla Punch (Monkee #11), the bike started out as a Honda CB 750 and has been seriously worked over to become the coolest café racer the world has ever seen. Taking into account the current popularity of all things custom, Wrenchmonkees deserve a lot more attention than they’re getting and considering the fame Discovery Channel has propelled OCC to, the world needs to see that custom doesn’t necessarily have to entail elongated forks, bulging muscles and massive amounts of chrome but rather subdued and clean designs that, in themselves, are powerful enough to get the right message across.

Wrenchmonkees can be studied in detail on their website.

Today I ran into my first real problem. Since I don’t know how to weld, and I have no one to teach me right this second, I have decided to leave the frame to a pro for welding. This is too big a job for me, getting it completely straight and symmetric.

Going to order me some flat track handlebars from Wrenchmonkees, and an order for a pair of minizoom mufflers have been placed too, albeit not with WM. I’ll be scouring Moto-bins for parts as a complement to FlatRacer. I’m definitely upgrading the front brake disc. Perhaps I’ll get all new wiring too? We’ll see.

It’s like a rite of passage, doing it yourself. I am so proud of myself for making that grinder my bitch. Well, not really but you get the point.
The tank is off and again, wires, lots of them. Any mountain looks big before you climb it but this is going to be epic. At least for me.

There are ups and downs in the garage. The problem isn’t really the work that needs to be done but the tools I don’t have. Thinking you can rebuild a bike with a basic tool set is madness. The lack of torque wrenches, jacks, pliers and plenty of other things I don’t have names for are making for slow progress.
It is now decided that instead of making an entirely new subframe, I’ll just modify my existing one. If that end up looking terrible, then we’ll see.
What worries me is the wiring of electrics. That actually scares the bejesus out of me. I spent a full ten minutes just looking at the wires for the rear turn signals before cutting them.

Ok, so I’m nuts. I’ve just convinced myself to modify, or make an entirely new rear frame! Thing is, I can’t handle half measures so I have to do it properly. If I don’t do it I’ll kick myself, but I’ll probably be kicking myself while doing it too.
In the words of Barney Stinson, “This will be awesome!”

Progress

It’s not even easy taking things off so it sure won’t be easy putting it back on. However, hanging a full evening in the garage with likeminded fellows is good for the soul. It may not be the speediest procedure but it sure is fun. This may be child’s play for many but it’s a daunting task for me. Next step will be making a new wiring system.
I also need to unload all that I am removing so there are quite a few things up for sale:

BMW original seat. Shows some wear and there is a small rip on the left side in the front.

Original mufflers. Good condition.

Dashboard for r75/6

Mirrors. Original BMW. Shows wear and one deep scratch on the right one.

Side panels. Right one has a small crack in it.

Aftermarket miniblinkers/turnsignals

More to come so stay tuned.

I want you all to welcome my first ever BMW to my growing park of motorised vehicles. It’s an R75/6 from 1974, runs strong and sounds deliciously. Despite being 36 years old, I intend to take this all over Europe. Scour some proper performace parts on eBay and FlatRacer and I will be good to go. But first I am going to strip it down, get it painted and then put it back together again, a little differently.

My first proper attempt to get my some grease on my elbows as I will try and make it look similar to something the Wrenchmonkees would build. On my own. With my two hands. Well, others have done it before me so how hard can it be? In order to be properly structured, I promise to chronicle the build here on The Cartorialist, which now will start featuring motorcycles!

Wish me luck!